On Mon, 23 Nov 2009 04:03:12 +0100, Carl Worth <cworth@cworth.org> wrote:

> I agree that "normal" should be easier too. So I just need to win you
> over to my notion of "normal", (and teach you of the ways of the magic
> space bar).

As I mentioned, I rarely read mail in a linear fashion; I don't want it
to show me another message, I want to see the index again. I'm torn over
whether I just want the index to always be visible; having the full
screen available to view a single thread is awfully nice. It seems like
a 'I'm done, go back to the index' is just what is needed here.

> [*] We should perhaps fix 'a' to remove the "unread" tag from any
> messages that _are_ wholly visible in the current window. It's really
> only when an entire thread fits this one, and I *did* read it, that I
> end up reaching for the 'A' binding.

yes, that does make a lot of sense, and do precisely the same for the
'x' key, leaving 'q' the way to get out of a message without changing
it at all.

> If we did that, then we could make 'a' do archive-go-to-next-message
> and 'A' do archive-return-to-search-view. What would you think about
> that?

I'd take 'x' for 'return to search view; otherwise you're going to wear
out my pinky reaching for the shift key. That leaves us with three
commands:

'a': advance to next message, archiving current thread, marking read
messages. ('A' forces all messages in thread to be marked as read)

'x': exit to search view, archiving current thread, marking read
messages. ('X' forces all messages in thread to be marked as read)

'q': quit back to search view, leaving thread tags unmodified.

There's a slightly weird asymmetry here -- there's no way to advance to
the next thread and not mark messages.

-- 
keith.packard@intel.com